---
title: "Mother sauces: what it means in cooking — Tiny Plates"
description: "The five French mother sauces are béchamel, velouté, espagnole, sauce tomate and hollandaise. Learning them lets you make hundreds of other sauces."
url: "https://www.tinyplates.dev/glossary/mother-sauces"
---

# Mother sauces

The five French mother sauces are béchamel, velouté, espagnole, sauce tomate and hollandaise. Learning them lets you make hundreds of other sauces.

Also called French mother sauces, Five mother sauces, Grandes sauces.

The mother sauces are five basic French sauces from which many others are made. Each one is a base: add a few ingredients to it and you get a "small sauce". The list most cooks use today comes from the chef Auguste Escoffier in the early 1900s.

## How to use it

Here are the five and what thickens each one.

| Mother sauce                                                     | Liquid      | Thickener                 | Example small sauces                  |
| ---------------------------------------------------------------- | ----------- | ------------------------- | ------------------------------------- |
| [Béchamel](https://www.tinyplates.dev/glossary/bechamel)         | Milk        | White roux                | Mornay (cheese), Soubise (onion)      |
| [Velouté](https://www.tinyplates.dev/glossary/veloute)           | Light stock | Blond roux                | Suprême (cream), Allemande (egg yolk) |
| [Espagnole](https://www.tinyplates.dev/glossary/espagnole)       | Brown stock | Brown roux                | Demi-glace, Bordelaise (red wine)     |
| [Sauce tomate](https://www.tinyplates.dev/glossary/sauce-tomate) | Tomatoes    | Reduction, sometimes roux | Provençale, Creole                    |
| [Hollandaise](https://www.tinyplates.dev/glossary/hollandaise)   | Butter      | Egg yolk emulsion         | Béarnaise, Mousseline                 |

Three of the five are thickened with a [roux](https://www.tinyplates.dev/glossary/roux), flour cooked in butter. The color of the roux matches the sauce: white for béchamel, blond for velouté and brown for espagnole.

To make a small sauce, start with the mother sauce and add flavor. Stir grated cheese into béchamel for macaroni and cheese. Add cream and lemon to chicken velouté for a sauce for poached chicken. Add tarragon and shallot to hollandaise for steak.

## Common mistakes

* Thinking you must make all five from scratch. At home, most people use béchamel and hollandaise most often.
* Using a weak stock for velouté or espagnole. The sauce can only be as good as the stock.
* Mixing up the roux colors, which changes both flavor and thickening power. Darker roux thickens less.

## Where it comes from

In the 1800s, the chef Marie-Antoine Carême grouped French sauces into four families. Escoffier later dropped one of them, _allemande_, which he treated as a small sauce of velouté, and added sauce tomate and hollandaise. Some modern cooks also count mayonnaise or vinaigrette as mother sauces, but those are not part of the classic five.

## Related terms

* [BéchamelBéchamel is a smooth white sauce of milk thickened with a butter and flour roux. It is the base for lasagna, mac and cheese, gratins and croque monsieur.](https://www.tinyplates.dev/glossary/bechamel)
* [VeloutéVelouté is a French mother sauce of light stock thickened with a blond roux. It is silky and pale, and it is the base of cream sauces for chicken and fish.](https://www.tinyplates.dev/glossary/veloute)
* [EspagnoleEspagnole is the classic French brown sauce of brown stock, a brown roux, mirepoix and tomato. It is a mother sauce and the starting point for demi-glace.](https://www.tinyplates.dev/glossary/espagnole)
* [Sauce tomateSauce tomate is the French mother sauce made from tomatoes slowly simmered with aromatics, stock and pork. It is richer than a simple Italian tomato sauce.](https://www.tinyplates.dev/glossary/sauce-tomate)
* [HollandaiseHollandaise is a warm sauce of egg yolks, butter and lemon, whisked into a smooth emulsion. It is the sauce on eggs Benedict and asparagus, and can split.](https://www.tinyplates.dev/glossary/hollandaise)
* [RouxA roux is equal weights of flour and fat cooked together to thicken sauces, soups and gravies. Cook it white, blond or brown depending on the dish.](https://www.tinyplates.dev/glossary/roux)

[More in sauces and stocks](https://www.tinyplates.dev/glossary/category/sauces-and-stocks)[Every term from A to Z](https://www.tinyplates.dev/glossary)